Odd Passport Check Experience

The police was looking for someone and you fit the description.
Sometimes people try to ride the trains without tickets. I've seen that in Italy. Switzerland they always check passports with train tickets.

But that doesn't explain changing the citizenship on the scanned image.

Italy has a ton of undocumented migrants. Passports are checked to see if you are in that group. I'm not shocked to hear it.

It is a sad fact that people who don't look Caucasian are more often targeted by ID checks in European countries where such checks happen. As a white man in France, I have never been subjected to a random ID check...
Now, I wouldn't make too much of the fact that the policement typed India instead of USA: it might well be that their form read "place of birth" instead of "nationality".

@Jazz-Travels - They we’re walking around very casually to be looking for someone, before and after checking us. I mentioned Switzerland for comparison as that was a non-issue since everyone was checked.

@balso - Place of birth was listed as India above the nationality/citizen which was a separate line below that. We had an issue at a restaurant too which kept us waiting even though it mostly empty so we just left.

Overall it’s been a very good trip so don’t think the sour feeling will linger with us long but still surprised.

Thank you for the responses.

Unfortunately I think you might be over sensitive. Profiling is more prevalent in Europe and it is legally permitted. We are old white folks and over the years have been stopped a number of times for passport checks. Once we were on a small shuttle bus type of vehicle on a private tour when a road block forced everyone to line up next to the bus for passport check. Another time on a bus in Germany, the bus was directed into a rest area and officers came on board checked every passport in a fairly unfriendly manner. On a train platform in Lyon, France, a group of military police were checking passports at random. So it happens. It is not a big deal in Europe.

.....We had an issue at a restaurant too which kept us waiting even though it mostly empty so we just left. ..... That is not what you are trying to think it is. If you didn't have reservations, it is most likely that those table were reserved for later customers. We have learned that reservations at most decent restaurants are expected. Anyone else in your same position would have been treated the same way.

I sugar coated my response the one from balso is the reality.
And this happens in the USA also not just Europe

@Frank - Thanks for sharing your experiences; it’s helpful to know it does happen elsewhere and not always in the best manner. As for the restaurant waiting comment, I meant waiting as in not even acknowledging that we were standing there while a few waiters moved around. We had not been checked in without a reservation waiting for a table which would have been different.

@Jazz-Travels - I’ve traveled up and down the Northeast US corridor by train and have never had the police come up to me on the basis of the way I look or even generally ask for any sort of ID. If you’re referring to this happening from people in general, then yes, that’s a different story although nothing in recent memory.

....Northeast US corridor by train and have never had the police..... But that is not going to happen in the US. The US has pretty strict protocols about profiling. And there is no expectation in the US that you have an id on you except when driving. The US has a very different idea about privacy and stopping people. I think that the local police would need "probable cause" to stop you and ask for an id. Random id checks in the US is just not done.

There is also the possibility that the restaurant was not open especially if you were viewing outside seating. We have had that happen once or twice also. In the US someone would politely come up and say, "We are closed." but not in Europe. And, of course, also the possibility of them just being jerks.

No this happens to minorities driving or walking in the USA all the time. You've been lucky

Aside from getting super-scrutinized at airports in Morocco this year, my oddest passport encounter was when flying out of Venice, almost 15 years ago.

A Caucasian, traveling solo at that moment, I presented my USA passport. I was born in the USA, and Passports had never been questioned or examined for more than a few seconds. What was different this time was that the passport had been issued at the American Embassy in London a month earlier, because my old one was going to expire in less than 90 days, and I couldn’t have gotten into Bulgaria without enough extra time on my passport. The embassy pasted the photo I’d gotten at a chemist (drugstore) just down the street in London in the appropriate photo space, then they laid a clear plastic film over it, but because of the thickness of the photo, it wasn’t totally flat, or flush with the rest of the page. The passport guy in the airport felt all along the edges of the photo, trying to see if he could peel the photo away, possibly thinking I’d stolen the passport from the real owner, and pasted my own photo amateuristically over the real one. After about three minutes, he showed it to another official, maybe his superior officer, who just shrugged, as if it was no concern. I was given it back, and went on to catch my flight. The plastic sealing maybe showed it wasn’t just a bad cut-and-paste job by a dishonest person. Now, of course, a facial image is embedded in the page of the passport, at least on my latest one issued in the USA. My minor delay was not as troubling as what you experienced, for sure, and they may or may not be scrutinizing in Venice more now than then, but maybe Venice could be the place with the most puzzling procedures?

Sorry you had to endure that, and changing a USA citizen’s data seems strange, indeed. Maybe classic profiling, and you just happened to be there. Hope things got much better from that point, and your travels, at home and abroad, are only rewarding and enjoyable from now on!

@Jazz-Travels - Got it, in my tunnel vision I was focusing on travel encounters. I’m familiar with what you are referring to from NYC’s stop and frisk policy although yes, I have been lucky not to have been stopped.

@Frank and cyn - Definitely possible and could be just the procedures in Venice.

The “odd” part was the changing of our data and whether that fed into any systems/shared systems (guess I should have clarified this earlier on) along with not checking anyone else. Simply checking and scanning our passports to see if they were valid would not have been an issue for us.

I am sorry you experienced that. Unfortunately with the political climate in Italy now it doesn’t surprise me (wouldn’t surprise me back home either sadly).

I don’t have any answers, just sympathy.

A few years ago I was on a train from Austria to Italy. An older train with compartments. Sitting with me in the compartment was a mother and adult son and a n older man. The other three were middle eastern in appearance. I'm your basic middle aged white guy.

At the last stop in Austria, the police boarded and were checking passports. The man across from me had a German passport. The couple had one from somewhere outside of Europe and were scrutinized. When it was my turn, I went to hand my passport and the officer just waved me off as if saying "not necessary."

Europe is cracking down on illegals and one way to check for them is to look at passports. Are they racially profiling? Probably. But that is not illegal in Europe.

It could happen for several reasons. And in Italy I would not mind about data - they cannot manage all of them anyway :-) inner-European prejudice, sorry.

Compared to the hardest checks I perceived in Europe this sounds very harmless but this was in the Cold War times on inner-German border at the car transit streets. Without any special reason they stopped families for hours and destructed nearly the whole car interior and searched through whole luggage. If you protested you had a good chance to end in jail for a day for "more specific research" from their side. In most cases it was pure chicane just to show who is chief in their territory - in other cases (like my father's experienced sometimes) they just wanted to check new or special West-German car, e.g. a new BMW 7 or BMW 8 in the 80s. In this cases it often ended up very quickly and friendly after offering that they can sit inside the driver seat for a moment ... all humans at the end :-)

And they scanned and profiled all transits of West-German population through their area. There was also max. speed of 100 km/h on East-German Autobahn which was a challenge for their Trabant cars at large or long hills. Speed checks were permanently and fines were very high. My parents even had a list where the speed checks were hidden. Business partners of my father often called his office to ask the secretary to fax this list because they wanted to drive over the weekend.

Today this is over and the checks show more humanity.

@OP: in your case it would be a real good idea to ask for reason to be checked. Guessing after based on your description wil not help you. Sorry.

The explanation is very simple - potentially you could be a dual national and as such could avoid the 90 days Schengen requirement by using both passports, so they checked to see if an Indian passport with the same details had been scanned at passport control recently.

You were targeted because you fitted the profile of someone or some group they were looking for. Call us crazy, but in Europe we have this idea that you have a better chance of catching someone if you target people who meet the profile!

As for the restaurant waiting comment, I meant waiting as in not even acknowledging that we were standing there while a few waiters moved around.

I've experienced that on countless occasions, most recently less than two weeks ago in Montenegro. My family and I are all white English people so I've always put it down to a sense of self importance on behalf on the wait staff and, more importantly, the image projected by the restaurant management in an attempt to convey some form of exclusivity. A prime example was turning up for lunch at a recommended restaurant in a place near to kotor, Montenegro. It was set in an absolutely beautiful setting and whilst it could seat well over 200 people there were only three tables occupied and a handful of tables with 'reserved' signs on. We were ignored for several minutes despite staff standing around until we were apporached by a young man, he asked if we had a reservation to which we replied "no" and his reaction was one of indignation that we should have the temerity to turn up at such an establishment without a reservation. As it was he quickly seated us, we had a mediocre meal, only two more tables were seated during our time there and we left feeling quite disappointed.

I can understand your perception that your treatment might be based on your race, I have a firend of Bangladeshi descent who often describes a different experience to the rest of us when we travel abroad, some of which I can agree with however quite a lot is without merit and is often due to over scrutiny and paranoia.

Citizens of India are required to obtain a visa to enter Italy, or the rest of the Schengen zone. They could have simply been checking for that (which would qualify as profiling of a sort). But that does not account for changing the entry on the scanned copy.

@Jim -That’s an interesting explanation as India does not allow dual citizenship and we’ve been US citizens for 20+ years. Not saying the police would know this but doesn’t make sense. We were in Switzerland for 8 days prior to Venice and did not have any issues (did have simple passport check as I mentioned above but they didn’t change our data in any way).

We’ve been in Rome for past 2 days and are staying on a street with military and police presence (Via del Corso) and have had no checks or issues. So seems like it was definitely a Venice thing so far.

@Others - Thank for sharing your experiences and insights.

Something similar has happened to me in Strasbourg train station in France. I will add that I am of Chinese descent, and was travelling solo. I had just bought my train ticket to Switzerland, and was waiting outside the ticket office, basically standing around trying to figure out where to go. That was when I was approached by 2 French police officers, who interviewed me about where I was going and where I came from. I will say that they were polite and professional about it, but it was a little unnerving to be singled out.

Later on the same trip, I was on a train from Prague to Dresden. I was the only non-white person on the carriage. German immigration officials came through the carriage and asked to see my passport. I was the only person in the carriage whose passport was checked.

So if you are non-white, you are more likely to be checked.

Just completed a three week trip from Sicily to Milan, in-country from Aug 20 to Sep 9.

While waiting for the Taormina-to-Naples day train (with ferry), a police officer (light blue polo shirt) checked our passports. My wife and I are US citizens. I am white, born in US; my wife is Asian, born in Japan. The officer checked many people on the platform, seemingly regardless of ethnicity, entering information into his cellphone.

After the train transited to the Italian mainland by ferry and resumed its journey, two police officers came through the car checking identification. They weren't checking everyone, but stopped at the four folks (all Italian) sitting in the seats across the aisle from us. Then they turned to our seats (2 Italians, and my wife and I), and checked identification papers. The Italians showed local ID (one seemed to be a university ID), and we showed our passports. For all eight IDs I saw them check, they entered data into their cellphones.

Our last experience of a police ID check was when we were on the Malpensa Express train traveling from Milan to Malpensa Airport, from where we flew out of Italy. A couple of police officers boarded and checked a few IDs, including ours', entering data into their celllphones.

In several areas (I especially remember in Catania, Rome, Milan, and near the Naples waterfront) we saw military vehicles with armed soldiers (including assault rifles) parked or patrolling. On the side of some of the vehicles I noticed the words (translated from Italian) "Operation Secure Streets" stenciled atop the camouflage paint in black letters.

Keep in mind that USCIS can stop anyone in the US within 100 miles of a border and request identification. Although a passport is not necessary, some ID is, and a Green Card most definitely is for non-citizens ... Roadblocks and all on some Interstates.... Security is quite a bit higher now everywhere now. So unfortunately yes, you were profiled, and no, you are not unique.

On my trip last year one of my trains in Germany was delayed over 15 minutes because the police were onboard checking IDs. They did not check the whole train and thus I didn’t get checked but the checked at least half the cars.
And they had been in the far end of the platform when we were waiting.

hmm, I`ve never been subjected to a random ID check.

Anyone who says that being profiled is unpleasant is understating. And anyone who thinks it's not unpleasant doesn't have a clue.

Even if it's routine and even if it's expected.

Then it looks like an Asian-American friend of mine, Chinese-American to be exact, if you want to be ethnic about it, fits that category, ( "clueless" ). He's now in his late 60s, born and raised in Calif, another Calif, boy as I am, and who has been to Europe a few times work-related and on vacation, also solo, though not recently.

A couple of years back I recall with him a conversation on traveling in Europe, experiences, mutually visited places in Germany, eg, Dresden, racial profiling, etc, etc if he had run into that, and so on.

His attitude was basically one of indifference and no concern, ie, if "they" want to check my US Passport over and over, I couldn't care less.

I'm not sure why my reply to Chani was deleted as no-one has the courtesy to explain why or court an explanation why my extensive experience of profiling is considered unworthy of contribution.

JC. Why don’t you contact the webmaster and ask for an explanation? Maybe it was inadvertent.

Norma, when previous posts of mine have been deleted I have received an explanation from the Webmaster. I suspect on this occasion the subject matter is too hot a potato to handle and instead of reasonable, balanced discourse based on experience and knowledge the preferred option is to stifle debate. I hope to be proved wrong but unfortunately I suspect I won't.